The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1887-04-16
SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM.
BY REV. WILLIAM TUCKER, D. D.
INT. Gilead, o.

"Body and Will" by noted author, is
of the late efforts of the scientific ma
terialism to carry the peculiar philoso-
phylwhich this class of writer's advocate
into the fields of psychology, physiol-
ogy and pathology, and thus secure for
materialism and atheism scientific sup
port. The author is an avowed mate
rialist, and uses all his learning as a
specialist in the department of mental
physiology, to prove that man is only
an animal. The only source of all phys
ical, chemical, vital, mental and moral
phenomena in the judgment of the au-
thor, is matter. In his philosophy this
wonderful agent is endowed with all
the properties and attributes of both
body and mind, and can perform both
material and spiritual functions.
The strange part of this remarkable
production is, that this statement of alb
surd and contradictory propositions is
claimed to be science, and this wild
and conflicting speculation is put forth
as scientific reasoning by an eminent
scientific specialist in the department
of mental physiology. In what he
claims as scientific reasoning, he ig-
nores the logical law of non contradic-
tion. He does not hesitate to ascribe
to the same substance, properties and
attributes that cancel and destroy each
other. In other words he does not hes
itate to claim that the same thing can
be and not be at the same time. The
| author is all the time manifesting his
contempt of metaphysics and meta
physical writer's yet the staple
thoughts and ideas that are presented
and repeated on nearly every page of
his large book are purely metaphysical.
Laws, causes, causation, forces, mo-
tives, motive influences, volition, de-
termination, necessity, liberty, free
will, mind, consciousness, and thought
are the words and thoughts on which
ne rings the changes from the begin
ming to the end of this professedly sci
entific treatise ON the relations of Body
and Will. The old arguments, and
sophisms of Calvin, Edwards and the
advocates of philosophical necessity are
re-vamped and made to do duty on
nearly every page, and come to the
front in nearly every part of the discus
sion. The boasted scientific argument
is tissue of assumption, special plead
ing, wild speculation, poor metaphysics,
and bad logic. In the authors reason
ing he constantly confounds causes and
conditions, certainty with necessity,
and determinism with foreknowledge.
Every rational and well informed mind
knows that causes and conditions are
not the same, that certainty and neces-
sity are not identical propositions, and
that determinism and foreknowledge
are no more alike than an attribute and
an act, and are as different as knowing
thing and doing it.
The author admits that the self-co
scious state that is, could not be in the
least like anything we know of the op-
erations of cerebral matter. Says he,
mo motion of it's molecules, gyratory
undulatory, nor any other combination
of such motions that we can imagine
could have any conceivable analogy
with sensation between them no COM
prehensible relation can exist. Which
put plainly is simply this: No physics
of the body can probably be the meta
physics of the mind" This being SC
the author clearly violates the law OF
non-contradiction and identity, in per-
sisting that the same substance matter
can have properties that contradict and
cancel each other. Why does he advo.
cate as doctrine of science the absurd
theory that this thing, matter, can be
and not be at the same time The
fact that light and sound are different
sensations, and at the same time are
produced by what he is pleased to cal
matter, does not remove the difficulty.
These sensations result from two
different modes of motion. The mo
tion of the atmosphere and the motion
of the ether. They are not alike. Their,
is no evidence that they are the sam,
substance. The wave of light anC
sound are forms of the motion Of diff
ferent things, and reveal different form
, of force as back of them. Ether, tn,
existence of which is assumed in orde
: to account for the law of gravitation